Hana Ichimonme — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Hana Ichi Monme in Japanese means, "Flowers for 1 Monme". Monme, a small coin, containing 3.5g of Ag back in the Edo period from 1603-1868. It is also the name of a kid's game much like our long gone "Red Rover".

Love the displays of realistic looking plastic models of representative dishes in front of Hanaichimonme which nostalgically remind me of many Teishoku/set meal restaurants in Japan.

My waitress was cheerful, perky, helpful in determining what level of chile heat (mild, 1-5). If I liked spicy, she suggested a "3", but I thought better & chose "2" since there was Ra-yu/hot chile oil; Shichimi To-garashi/7 flavour chile powder; smoky, white ground pepper on the table which I could add in later if the piquancy level were low. Even for me, a person into Thai, Mexican, Korean, Indian foods, "2" was hot enough.

1. Tried their signature Coconut Champon which reminded me of Malaysian Laksa, a pool of coconut milk w/ tiny beads of bright orange red chile oil floating. There seems to be a chicken based stock, Ra-men noodles, small shrimps, bay scallops, julienned squid, barely cooked crunchy bean sprouts, thinly sliced onion.

If you drink most of the soup, there is at the bottom of the bowl rough ground pork oil sautéed w/ garlic which infuses a funky, earthy, sulfurous sensation to the rich, creamy broth. Excellent non-traditional "fusion" take on Japanese Ra-men.

1a) Cold Yaègaki (yah eh gah kee) Sakè (sah keh) had a touch of woody bouquet w/ sweet toastiness countered by a refreshing touch of bitterness. Smooth ripe delicious apple tone. At $6.50 for a 300ml bottle, it was a good deal that paired well w/ the Coconut Champon.

2. They were out of Coffee Jelly which would have ended the meal on a refreshing, low calorie note. So I opted for the Fruit Anmitsu (ahn mee tsoo) which has canned pear, tangerine, pineapple, fresh banana, Anko/sweetened, dark brown Azuki bean paste, vanilla ice cream, light sugar sauce, neutral tasting cubed Kanten/agar agar gelatin to cleanse the palate.

Hanaichimonme is a sleeper restaurant. The food I ordered was satisfying, filling in a good way, tasty. Also what made dining here very pleasant was my waitress (photo in my review), who went out of her way to make sure my tea cup was always filled as well as having snippits of friendly conversation. Too bad the male owner is not as socially inclined to give a warmer welcome, but that is beside the...

This place was a great place to get food. Not all the dishes were good but I didn’t have a problem with going to the restaurant 5 to 10 times a year. Then the pandemic hit.

I decided one day to go back to the restaurant one day because I didn’t want the restaurant to close because of the pandemic. I was surprised that the restaurant changed owners. Restaurant was always run by what I believed to be a Japanese Family owned restaurant, so now it is Latino Family owned restaurant.

Changing ownership is the problem but the food was severely lacking. At first I thought it was a bad day. So I tried again maybe a couple months later. Nope the food didn’t get any better. I ordered a large curry which was like $9. All it was was the curry sauce with no pork or things that come curry and rice! I realized the changed the recipe which I could only assume was because the restaurant was severely hurting because of the pandemic so the owners cut corners. After this visit and as horrible as this sounds, I had hoped the restaurant would go out of business.

Since the restaurant is still standing, I assume things got better but for me never again. It’s really unfortunate because I have a craving for ramen and the places I have gone to are ok but a bit greasy in terms of cooking styles. I wish I knew if the restaurant changed owners again but...

I may be mistaken, but surely Hana Ichimonme is the very last remaining name in the beloved Yohan Plaza that currently we know of as Little Tokyo Market Place. Gone is the original bowling alley, the Northface Flagship Store, and many other Japanese eateries however, I am very happy to see this traditional Japanese restaurant still serving many favorites.

Their menu continues to deliver your classic Japanese affair with Ramen, Soba, Chanpon, Katsu, Curry, and many other staples. This is comfort food in a sense for many patrons and fans. The quality is good. It isn't the upscale or overly priced gourmet, and this is what makes the approachable nature of having an institution. The service is excellent.

The handover of ownership vacated the charm. The pricing is about $5 more than the perceived value. Maybe this is the pricing required to maintain. Parking is validated for 90 minutes, and this shopping center continues to offer many other things to warrant an entertaining and...